


Waiting for Phil

by MountainRose



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bad Bondage, Heat Torture, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rescue, Sensory Deprivation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 16:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainRose/pseuds/MountainRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton is captured; it happens to all of them, eventually. Some of them come out of it alive, some of them don't, but always, always, it changes you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Torture

It was almost inevitable, really; missions go south on a fairly regular basis, Agents get stuck, left behind or martyred. Barton isn't a stranger to that, himself.

The real problem is that it's China.

The thing about the Chinese is that they _invented_ water torture; they've had _four_ _thousand years_ to perfect the act of breaking someone.

The real blow, worse than the tazer that had finally taken him down or the hit he'd taken to the knee, was when he lost the solid-state transmission speaker in his tooth; his last line of communication. He knows they are coming for him, he _knows_ this compound is due for a visit from International Pest Control inc., but he can't guarantee remembering that once it really starts.

It's getting compulsive, pushing his tongue into the pulpy hole where they pulled the tooth, because that sort of pain is really _satisfying_ , like picking a scab, while the heavy pain in his chest, having to heave his ribs up just to get air, is slowly grinding down his will to _just keep breathing_.

When they'd first held him down, they'd used leather. Big, fat, soft leather, cured hard on one side and napped soft on the other; it wouldn't leave any marks, no matter how hard he pushed and thrashed. These people were _perverse_ , and once he was broken, they would show him off like a prize animal while he talked, and talked and did anything to _just make it stop._ There wouldn't be a mark on him that wasn't completely, _crushingly_ , deliberate.

He hadn't understood the position they'd strapped him in at first, on his side, his head immobilised. But once they neatly held his jaw open with a gag and pulled the tooth, he thought he did; it let the blood drain out of his mouth neatly, and into the bowl a woman dressed in fine silks had put on the smooth limestone floor. Coulson's voice was gone, the soft hum of his orders broken by the sharp crack of pliers on enamel. The drug was reapplied after that, (transcutaneous paste, red, tingling sensation when applied, symptoms; distal muscle weakness, shortness of breath, hypersensitivity, fever, _tellPhiltellPhiltellPhiltell Philmissioncritical_ ), over nerve clusters on his bare chest, which Natasha's more violent moods made him familiar with( _ohgod,Natasha,pleasecome)_ , and in a long sweeping line down his spine. It made him pliant, vulnerable, and utterly disorientated; he'd started fixating on the strangest things when he should be trying to work out what they'd given him, what they're after.

This place is _old,_ the stone worn smooth by the idle passage of thousands of years of hands and feet. The lamps on the tunnel roofs hang under oily black marks, like you get over candles, but the lights are electric now, neat wiring barely visible; money, lots of money, pouring into this place, no scrimping on anything. Paintings on bamboo dotted the walls he had been carted past and his drugged out perspective had picked out places where they had been repaired so subtly that he doubted he would have noticed if he wasn't drugged and high on oxygen deprivation. _Money_ , _time, effort_.

The chamber he'd been brought to, slumped out, weak and gasping on a strange wooden cot, is small with a high, carved ceiling and a neat lattice of bamboo poles hangs over him, just visible in the corner of his eye. He pushes another gobbet of blood out past his front teeth weakly and touches the empty socket of his tooth, his mouth hanging open in an attempt to get enough air. He lets his eyes stay closed; anticipation would make it worse. But, then, his mind is already intimately familiar with torture, and more than capable of imagining the very worst of horrors; looking might actually be a relief. He still doesn't want to.

He still has trousers and underwear, at least; they aren't his own so someone has seen him naked while he was unconscious, but they're good, strong linen, held up by a tough fabric belt ( _roughonhypersensitiveskin,painlikethreedaysofrucksackstrapsunderAfghanisun)_. Maybe that isn't something he needs to be afraid of, ( _Philwhereareyou,don'tletthempleasephil_ ); hope that something _won't_ happen is a particular, biting sort of pain.

The two men who'd brought him here, who'd tied him down at the direction of the woman-in-silk, who had so calmly pulled out his tooth and crushed his connection to his sanity, are sitting next to a brazier and it's getting _warm_. There's no electric light in this chamber, just candles, and the heavy door to the tunnel is closed. He can't breathe and he knows about heat torture, he _knows_ how much heat human skin can take before it dies and he knows they won't kill him, and _fuck._

He forces himself to look; this anticipation shit? absolute bull, and watches as the woman-in-silk lays out fat red candles on a mat in front of the brazier, her back to him. The men are watching him intently, talking in a dialect that's a long way from the Mandarin he can just about get by in, and they're professionals. Their expressions are serious but relaxed, experienced; the probability of them fucking up is going way down in his estimation. On the plus side, they'll know enough to not kill him, no matter how much abuse he throws at them, but on the negative side, they _won't let him die_.

The woman-in-silk turns to the brazier with a white candle, smaller than the half-inch across red ones, and he notices that she has put leather gloves on, which shine with some sort of red oil. Her sharp command sends the two men to their feet and they smoothly reach for the bamboo scaffolding hanging from the ceiling. After that, Clint looses track of what they are doing because her candle is lit and she's bearing down on him impassively. Her free hand lands on the side of his face, between the strap holding his head down and the score marks left from the gag. His breath seizes and he jerks against the bindings; her touch _burns_.

_Capsaicin oil_.

Her glove is saturated with it, the oil dangerously close to his eye and he forces them shut. He can't see the flame anymore and the burning glove erases his ability to feel the heat so when the first drop of hot wax hits his ear, his whole body jerks. His lungs heave and he clamps his mouth shut so hard that his whole jaw throbs.

Her hand shifts, stroking his forehead in a disgusting mockery of a gentle gesture, painting fire and pain. It he could talk around the airless choking feeling he would have started bullshiting, trying to piss them off, a solid strike, a broken bone, _something_ other than the feeling of burning-

The second strike of wax isn't just a drip, it's a _stream_ and he can feel it filling his ear. The burning lasts longer, goes deeper, and this time, his scream fills the space in short, breathless bursts.

When it's over, the wax hard and cooling, the left side of the world feels empty, or a long, long way away. The pain is deep and heavy, while the smears of oil burn fresh and sharp. His vision swims, ( _noaircantbreathePhilwhereare youitstimeyoucameithurtshurt sfuck)_ and they aren't going to be asking him questions because they're _deafening him_.

When they unhook his restraints from the rings on the cot (hard, smooth, warm, no relief when they push his burning temple to the wood, rough cotton under his shoulder,) he tries to struggle; his arms are strong, three, maybe fourfold stronger than someone with a different line of work, and even with the drug he should be able to do _something_. There's only three of them, he can take three people.

They barely react to his attempts and pin him back down like a child. His chest feels empty and heavy and the struggle to breathe is worsened by the exertion so when she fills his other ear with wax and the screaming starts again _(Fuckingbreathe,Barton!)_ , it doesn't take him long to pass out.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They've moved him again, he notes, shaking against the restraints at the shock of something horribly, bone-creakingly cold touching his back. There's something over his eyes, tight and hot and pressing against his eyelids so that he can't even blink, and the skin feels burnt from eyebrows to cheek bones. Fear lances through him, letting off a jolt of adrenalin so strong it fights back the effects of the drug and clears his head; if they've blinded him, if they've so much as _blurred_ his vision, then their ends cannot come slow enough. He's tightly restrained again, face down, but hanging in space. His arms are pulled taught by heavy straps at wrist and shoulder, augmented by tightly wound thread around each of his fingers, just below the second knuckle, like puppet strings that will cut him if he struggles. There are places on his body, shoulders, back, fingers, that burn like his forehead; any place where they touched him marked in heat and pain and oil. The thing that woke him up is taken away, just as it was fading from painful to _fuck-that's-cold,_ so he knows there is someone still there and it makes his skin crawl because he can't see them, doesn't know where they are or what they might do to him next.

His legs are tied to something, it's hard to tell what, but it holds him out horizontal, stretched between the straps on his shoulders and thighs, chest down and head dangling. His breathing is better, the stripes of tingling, drugged skin returning to normal, but it's done its job and he is so well restrained that it's going to take his _captors_ half an hour to free him and his chances at getting a shot in have dwindled down to zero.

He opens his mouth to speak, the sounds are muffled by the wax in his ears and he doesn't know if he's intelligible but if they respond then he'll at least know _something_.

They do; the gag returns. The bars fit neatly behind his canines as someone presses hard against the angle of his jaw to keep his mouth open and then it's ratcheted wide, wide enough for more dental work. The strap fits around the back of his head, but there's fuck all he can do to get it out anyway.

Something, leather, hot, and _fucking shit, the glove_ , pushes his tongue down punishingly and then shifts to probe the roof of his mouth and the messy hole left by his tooth, leaving burning lines of capsaicin behind. The muscles of his jaw bunch and his teeth creak as he bites down but the gag is resilient and as much as he wants to bite those fingers, and damn the consequences, he can't.

The burning ( _shitI'mnevergoingtoeatcurryagainPh ildontcarehowmuchyogurtyoupu tinit)_ makes his eyes water and lingers on after the fingers are gone; it will stay for hours.

There's no warning before the first drops hit. They're far, far hotter than what they'd used on his ears and he can intimately and horrifyingly identify the line the drop rolls down, burning for longer, before it hardens. He back shudders convulsively, like a fly-bitten horse, and there's no time to settle before the next splash of pain hits higher up, on his shoulder.

Worst of all is the complete unpredictability; drip. Drip-drip. Dri...p. _Dripdripdrip_. He has no way of knowing when the next one will come, it never strikes the same place twice, and it sometimes hits him in four, five, six places at once. The burning in unbearable and the low, open-throated scream it drags out of him is muffled completely by the wax.

His chest is hot, and it takes him a moment, continually distracted, to realise that the brazier is underneath him; he can smell the smoke and feel the heat. His jerking and writhing barely even makes his restraints shift, but he tries to pull away from the heat anyway and a scalding hand presses on the back of his neck suppressively.

_Punishment._ The glove and the oil are punishment for being 'bad'; talking, flinching... but no, the hot patches from while he was unconscious mean they manhandled him with them, so what...?

Anything that touches him, hurts. He cannot see, cannot hear, can't tell when it's coming. His flinches roll into a continual shuddering tension and-

_Why couldn't it be waterboarding? I can handle water. Four minutes and change. Phil (philphilphil) was impressed._

His thoughts stutter and slip out of his grasp as a constellation of sharp burns scatters across his chest. Sparks, from the coals; _fucking sick bastards._

His hands jerk; he's been trying so hard to keep them still, his fingers are so important ( _dontmovedontflinchdontdontdo nt)_ , but it's too much and the thread below his knuckles bites and cuts the skin, (Index finger, left hand; guide the arrow, push it lightly into the catch, adjust grip, pull. Middle finger, thumb, right hand; pull back, hold, touch thumb to cheek bone, adjust for wind, release).

There is one question he'll never ask himself, not when he's this far gone, not when Coulson's ( _philphilareyoucoming? ,Iwouldtakeovertheworldforyou ifyouhadice)_ voice is so far away. He will never ask himself what they want.

Sure, he asked earlier, and he's worked out their motives for this... this twisted shit; they're professional torturers, the Chinese underworld pays them to turn him into a doll that will answer questions. It's _not_ their job to do the asking; he knows the stories, they make sure everyone in the business does.

No, he won't ask himself what they want now, because it might just sound like; _how do I make this end?_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Time loses its meaning.

Eventually, things change; a long, cold stripe is painted down his spine and in minutes, his muscles slacken back to hazy immobility. The brazier is taken away and he is dropped face first onto the cot; its fabric is familiar to his skin, so sensitized that he can feel every thread, and its warm wood offering no relief from the heat of his burns. They move him, their gloves burning sharply, the shift of his shoulders making him groan, and lay him on his back.

It is agony; the wax shifting and peeling, scratchy brocade on burnt skin, but the gag has turned his screams into wisps of pained air and he can't even manage that when the drug is painted over his voice box and solar plexus. His world narrows again; from desperately trying to keep his head to just telling himself to _breathe_.

The gag is adjusted and removed; he works his jaw and the joint is so stiff, even that hurts. Closing his mouth is fantastic for a half-second, before it shifts and spreads the oil on his tongue, sending fire into the pulpy hole left by his pulled tooth. He pants, swallows convulsively, but the paste on his throat makes it clumsy and painful.

They never leave.

He lies there, panting for breath and restrained by the insidious power of their fucked up drugs. They just touch him occasionally; nothing threatening, but the oil on their gloves makes each one agonizing. He can't see it coming, he flinches with instinctive battle-ready energy each and every time, and it's _exhausting_. Whimpers and cries that a _child_ would be ashamed of trickle out of him like the blood from his fingers.

Time passes and they don't let him sleep and the constant struggle for air makes unconsciousness _extremely unwise_.

Four times he is strung up by hands that burn, over sparks that bite like snakes and dripped on by liquid pain that never burns deep enough to kill the nerves letting him feel it.

The heat, the lack of water, lack of sleep, are getting to him ( _whatthefuckjuststophalfanhou rthatsallI'maskingphilI'llgotomedicalwillinglyifyou'lljustgetthefuckoverhere)_ and he knows it; the headache, the increasing speed with which the drug takes hold. If it gets much past the 72 hour mark, it will kill him, but he knows they're not that nice, not by a long shot.

He doesn't know how long it has been already. Four shifts? Two days, maybe... ( _fortyeighthoursphilgetthefuc konwithit)._

His skin keeps trying to heal. During the downtime when the minutes are broken by pain from human touch, his skin pulses with his heartbeat and grows so sensitive that the slightest movement is excruciating, ( _canIhavethegooddrugsphil?promisenottogoventingificanh avethegooddrugspleasephil)._ Each time they string him back up, someone scrapes the wax away with something, (hot metal, curved, blunt) and the red skin underneath _screams_ at him, but he's getting too weak to cry out himself.

He's starting to lose it, he knows. He can't remember what the word 'Avenger' means, but he can remember the colour of two brilliantly glowing eyes, with a circle of light beneath them ( _philscomingIcanask,itsfinehe'llknowhewillhewill)._ There's a voice, orders, ( _notphilbutI'lldoitsir,becausephillikesyou)_ but he doesn't remember what the words were anymore, because all he can cling to is the sound, in this soundless, pain filled void, that's all there is.

Meaningless time, endless time, time is relative, time bandits, girl time, time lord, time wounds all heal, time time _time._

( _You're late.)_


	2. Phil

When word comes in the Clint's been handed over to Chinese breakers, Phil's world goes very still. Everything pauses while his world shifts from extraction to _rescue_.

Natasha thrashes against labels; _too Russian, too white, too red-haired_. She can't go in this time, can't pull their archer out of this like a thief in the night. Her anger is cold and sharp and raw as an Arctic storm.

Steve, Tony, they have no _idea_ , and no one wants to be the one to tell them that Clint's been squirreled away in the mental equivalent of a demolition yard; they tell Banner from halfway across the country.

It's taking far, far too long to find him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There are shield-shaped dents in the wall of Fury's office, and the whole Helicarrier _rang_ with the impacts. Phil's hand on his shoulder is just about the only thing keeping Tony from doing something equally ... demonstrative. The genius keeps wiping his hand over his face like he can feel water, and his other hand is clamped over the Arc; Phil knows, he can see it.

They know what to expect now, and Natasha's briefing them on what to do when they find him.

There's a lot of ' _don't fuck up'_.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They haven't touched him in too long.

He's laid out, exhausted, beyond thirsty, and barely able to breathe, _waiting_ for the next spike of burning touch, but it's not coming. His heartbeat thrums faster in fear; escalation? Is he broken now? Has he done something that makes them think...?

He tries to move, to get more information, _strains_ against the weakness in his limbs and croaks around the dryness of his throat but he can't hear himself and doesn't know if they can either. His hand flops uselessly off the edge of the cot and he doesn't have the energy to move it back up again. The smears of oil on his skin linger like Afghani sun; painful and raw and utterly out of place in this all-encompassing darkness.

He's starting to hope that maybe they're letting him rest, but he knows there's a reason not to sleep, but if he was unconscious, he wouldn't have to feel the terrible inability to breathe.

( _stayawakeClintyou'llstopifyoudon'tyou'lldie)_

The world swims around him; they took his sound, his sight, tortured him with touch and taste, and now they're taking Up and Down away too. He's drifting, sickeningly loose in space despite the hard bite of cloth-covered wood into his back. He feels his chest heave in a detached way and realises that he had forgotten to breathe, was that even possible? ( _focusbreathelivephilscoming)_

His world narrows and he focuses on drawing in air, time slides by agonizingly slowly until abruptly, lots of things happen, in quick succession and he wishes time would slow down again.

First, there is a tremor; he feels it in the air and through the wood of the cot.

Second, the air moves; a breeze blowing across his burning, over sensitive skin in a way just short of pain, sending chills and shakes through his weakened limbs.

Third, he hears a faint hint of actual _sound_ ; a low, deadened thing that makes his heart lurch in his chest because he actually _hears_ something, because it's still  _possible._

Someone touches him and its bare skin, fingertips pressing into his throat to feel his pulse; he flinches violently, expecting the raw burning to begin again. The fingers are cool and rough-skinned but they jerk away too quickly and Clint is lost in space again, reeling, afraid, and confused because it _didn't_ burn him.

It comes back, this time there's the sticky drag of a latex glove and suddenly there's a surge in the hope he's marshalled so carefully. This is _different_ , _(pleasephili'llkill_ Breathe _whoeverthisisifitisn'tyou_ BreatheBarton) and change could be bad, but it could be so terribly, astonishingly _good_ , too. He shifts his jaw and tries to talk; the drug painted on his throat wasn't renewed, and it feels like the word, but he can't hear to check. He asks the Question, because even though he can't hear the answer, he knows he would find a way to tell him.

"Phil?"

The hand on his neck twitches but doesn't pull away, time swims slowly in stuttering heartbeats and heaving ribs, and then someone is picking up his hand and gripping it tight, pressing his palm against fabric, ( _italianwool,sheerfinnishnopinstripe,lapeltiecollar)_ and then his fingers slide between buttons and there is Phil's scar. So familiar, so rough and so painful, and in that moment, so, so beautiful.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

They're ready for them, but as a general rule, no one is really ready for Steve. Coulson follows on his heels as the heavy door crashes off its hinges to the floor, braining a Chinese woman on the way. She falls by the wayside while Steve meets one of the pair of guards shield-first. Phil gets the other, a clean shot to the head, and the report momentarily deafens them in the tight, stone space.

The air inside muggy and hot, full of the smell of coal smoke, wax and sweat and he's finally, _finally_ found what he's looking for. Clint's laid out flat on his back, stripped to the waist with something tied over his eyes.

"Agent Barton, report," He barks, holstering his weapon and pulling his Natasha-approved extraction kit over his shoulder. Clint's skin is drenched with sweat and his chest is heaving, part of that can be accounted for by the heat, but there are long red marks, smudged round ones and lines of dribbled wax all over his torso. It's worrying when Clint doesn't respond; Coulson's familiar with using drugs in interrogation and the fact that Clint isn't tied down means that he's under the influence of something _powerful_.

He kneels next to the low cot, reaching for Clint's pulse. The archer flinches sharply, but Phil doesn't end up choking on the floor, held down by 150 pounds of compact muscle and that is so _wrong._ His breathing is so rough, painful, that he suspects internal injuries, but there's no sign of bruises- _fuck_.

He whips his hand away from Clint's throat; his fingertips feel like they're burning and there's an oil shining on his trigger callus. He scrubs it off and pulls a pair of gloves on hurriedly.

"Cap, there's something on his skin, it burnt me, but it's not leaving marks on Clint, search the-" He trails off as he gets his hand on Clint long enough to feel the thready, weak pulse. It skips and jumps as his chest heaves and Coulson is momentarily paralyzed; Clint's lips are cracked, dry and thin, his skin is sallow; he's quite literally dying of thirst. His throat moves under Phil's fingers and there's a hiss of air that might just be a word. Coulson's eyes snap to his lips and he's sure as hell going to read it if he can't hear it.

"Yeah, Clint, it's me, we're getting you out of here, we got this." He says, clearly as he can, trying to reach through the fog of whatever crap they gave him. His left hand is still oil free, and he reaches to undo the white cloth over Clint's eyes but he has to stop. Where another man might have screamed in frustration, he just froze for a half- moment before righting himself. The cloth isn't just tied over his eyes, it's _stuck_ there with white wax. If they've hurt Clints eyesight, there is _no power on this planet_ that'll stop Phil from fucking them up so hard they won't even know how to die.

He takes Clint hand instead and can't stop himself from clinging to it like he can hold Clint's mind here with just the pressure. There are tiny cuts ringing his fingers, scabbed over but having left enough gritty, drying blood on his fingers for Phil to know that they've been reopened at least twice.

"Got it; Capiscum oleum, and there's a number; 'eight mil, ScHU'" The Captain barks out from a chest on the other side of the room, "The red stuff is here too, no label." Coulson nods and presses Clint's hand to his chest; as long as it just feels like it's burning, he can handle it to give Clint even a tiny amount of reassurance. The oil does burn, horrifically and unrelentingly, on the scar tissue but Clint's face is so beautiful in that moment that it is beyond worth it.

He gives him a long moment and Clint's string-calluses scrape slightly against his skin as his fingers shift but eventually, the need to move overrides his sentiment.

He uses a splash of alcohol to get the oil off his gloves before he pops the cap off a bottle of water; they need to get the drugs off his skin and he needs to drink. Clint's going to need more than just water, salts, sugars, possibly an antidote, soon, but it's a good start.

"Stark! How's extraction coming?" He calls into his radio as he waves a plastic vial at the Cap to take a sample of the red paste. He doesn't bother hoping its just paint. The cold of the water he pours on Clint's chest makes the man's already ragged breathing shudder and he hurries to get it and the paste off again before it puts him into shock.

"Widow's into the control centre, I'll have power controls in one minute thirty. How's our boy?" Tony answers, snappish and worried.

"Concentrate; we've got him, he's alive. I want you to infiltrate their systems; don't just delete them, scramble them, make an omelette. And get us out of here. Over." He snaps right back, cutting the connection.

He gives Clint the first dribbles of water, just enough to wet his lips, before pushing an arm under his shoulders to sit him up. His mouth works around the fluid like he doesn't quite know how to swallow and there are faint marks around his lips and jaw. Phil was listening when the pliers had fixed around Clint's tooth and he knows they gagged his mouth open somehow, but that was nearly three days ago and there shouldn't be a pressure mark left by now. He's been gagged again, tightly and protractedly. Clint's just so much dead weight and something about touching his back makes a horrible, breathy whine come out of his mouth, but they haven't got much time. When he tips the bottle again, Clit's ready and gulps with pained care that tells Phil he's still in there, still aware enough to know how this goes, despite what must be, by now, all consuming thirst.

He lets him have half the bottle over the course of nearly a minute and the chatter is starting to gear up for extraction. Phil is paying unusually little attention to the radio, though. Clint's back is a rippled sheet of dark red wax, streams of which curl far around his ribs; he was on his front when they did this, but not lying down. This drugged up, this weakened, lying on his front would have killed him. The bamboo grid hanging from the ceiling probably has something to do with that; the stubs of burnt out candles sit tilted on sharpened bamboo spikes, theirlong runnels of dark wax smeared over the scaffold.

He runs gentle fingers across the edges of the blindfold; it's stuck tight and the skin is reddened and not quite blistered, but the fabric covers a lot so who knows. As he feels around the back of the band, Clint flinches and jerks his head weakly away from his hand. The movement turns his ear towards the light and Coulson spots the wax plugging his ear; no wonder Clint didn't respond to his voice. Coulson is Just Phil for a long moment while he presses the white-hot rage back down; he can't do arctic efficiency now, not like this, but simmering, brutal competency? That he can manage.

Clint isn't getting out of here on his own two legs, wouldn't be even if he had all his senses, and Coulson isn't strong enough to carry him. Fortunately, Captain America _is_. They wrap the archer in the cloth he's lying on and the Cap hoists him up carefully; it's nerve-wracking when Clint's chest bows out, heaving in air, but he settles again, his breathing laboured but steady. It was the pressure of Cap's hold on his back; Phil see's the tension in Clint's jaw, the way his throat works every time Steve's arm shifts.

There's no time though, they need to get to the extraction point and into the 'jet, and all Phil can do for him is press Clint's limp palm to the star over Steve's breastbone. There's another flash of recognition and then they have to run; Phil hangs Cap's shield over his back and they take off, away from the sound of automatic rifles.

"Alright, give the word, Cap; controls are slaved to me. Bugging out." Iron Man's metallic tones are underplayed with urgency; they've all been tense for days and Tony's the one who butchered China's firewall as a distraction. What better way to distract a government that controlled what information its population received than to give them YouTube?

"Path is clear, repeat, path is clear. Warming up the jet now." Natasha added; she'd run the route in and out ahead of them, stopping off at the control centre on the way to plant one of Tony's wireless hacker chips and set the incendiaries. They shouldn't meet anyone, but they'll have to be fast to avoid getting hit from behind. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem; Cap could fight his way through compounds like this in his sleep, but with Clint _literally_ insensate, they're at a disadvantage.

(If they had a little more time and a little less injury on the team, Phil might just take a moment to have a Moment over the fact that he's wearing Cap's shield. He'll have to have it later, when he's not watching Clint's bare feet hanging over Cap's arm limply.)

He misses the moment when the cool air of outside hits Clint's skin because he's too busy popping shot's into their pursuers' centres of mass, but he does see his smile when they pile into the 'jet. Lingering like he can't quite believe it.

"And lights out." The compound's lights go dark, blast doors shut in the faces of their pursuers and they're away. The white glow of magnesium flame starts up and it will be hours before they'll go out again. Hours and cubic miles of toxic smoke.

Cap's balance is impeccable and he holds Clint steady, despite the jet bumping into the updrafts off the compound. Phil hauls the bay door closed, Natasha's on pilot and Tony's co, so it's just him and Steve in the belly. There's a stretcher on the opposite flank and Phil tugs it down but he's reluctant; the turbulence is rough and they'd need to strap Clint down. Better to let Cap keep a hold on him; the supersoldier nods at his gesture and jams himself against the side of the 'jet, sliding down so his legs are braced against the weapons locker under the stretcher.

He uses the stretcher as a bench, pulling out an IV kit. He has no idea how to deal with the wax, doesn't know if he can give Clint painkillers, even, but he knows Clint needs fluids and Quinjets are used to handling people with low blood volumes. There's oxygen too, which he suspects Clint sorely needs. Steve has Clint held fast, trying not to press on his struggling chest and Phil slips the O2 mask over his face easily enough, before settling himself steady on the steel floor and reaching for the needle. It's hard to tell whether Clint is conscious, harder still to tell whether he understands when Phil put's his hand on the IV bag in warning, but he hangs the bag above the pair and just gets on with it. His hands don't shake.

After that, things fall strangely still; the helicarrier's over the Indian ocean, three hours away, and Phil's slumped back opposite Steve, aware that he's probably in shock himself, just a little bit. Tony'd been on the line to JARVIS and Bruce, but SHEILD medical hadn't had any advice to pass on, apart from the portable AED attached by leads to Clint's chest. Phil's finding the trace, Clint's heartbeat, utterly mesmerizing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Perception is hazy, dark and quiet and still. The ghost of sensation against his fingers; a scar, a star, let him rest.

Coulson's there when he wakes up; the sound that his special iridium-nib fountain pen makes is unmistakable. Clint doesn't immediately find it surprising that he can hear, he's too busy floating on a sea of the good drugs, and he opens his eyes to look for Phil without hesitation. The movement, his head rolling on the pillow, is enough to make Phil perk up from his scribbling and put the papers aside.

The room is comfortably dim, with a dull yellow lamp for Phil to work by, but no overhead lights. It's obviously Medical; the smell, the IV in his arm, even the memory-foam mattress are all familiar, but he's never seem it so dim before. It's comfortable and doesn't make him want to close his eyes again. He blinks slowly; and _oh_ , blinking is new, isn't it? His eyes zip around the room, cataloguing, measuring, evaluating, _revelling_ in being able to _see_ ; Phil's been waiting for three shifts, bin in the corner, coffee cups stacked neatly and dropped in, Fury was here, faint scuff of black rubber from a left boot on a right hand turn, distinctive. Iron Man; Clint's phone, open on the apps page; new addition of Fruit Ninja, not for release until November. Steve; flowers, which Pepper bought, but Steve delivered, because the paper is rumpled by a hand that's so big it could only be Steve or Thor, and Thor wouldn't know to bring flowers and doubly wouldn't know to ask Pepper for them. And he's probably still in Asgard? No sign that Natasha's been, apart from the loose screws on the door hinge that mean he could pop the door out of its frame if someone tries to lock him in.

He _glories_ in being able to see, even as he tracks Phil's movement with his ears; ohhh, ice chips. They rattle pleasantly; half melted, just enough to make them stick to the side of the cup, Phil jostles the container to loosen them. Clint's eyes go back to Phil, who looks tired and worn, but very, very pleased and Clint quirks a grin up at him, accepting an ice chip from only slightly inky fingers. One smudge of red, the rest blue, not much ink overall; Fury was here less than an hour ago.

Clint's throat feels utterly, Afghani-desert dry but his mouth is clumsy enough that the ice was definitely a better idea than the pitcher of water sitting next to it. He's already half sat up, the head of the bed tilted just enough that he _can_ see the whole room without lifting his head; Phil knows him _very_ well.

Phil perches on the edge of the bed while Clint rolls the ice around his mouth, letting the melt water drip into his throat before he tries to swallow; he's thirsty but he knows better than to rush it, and if the two IV's are anything to go by, he's well on the way to full rehydration already. Phil uses the excuse of checking on the IV in his right arm to pull the hand into his lap, their fingers wrapped loosely around each other. Up to now, Clint has felt no real urge to move, but with Phil's hand right there, he pushes exhausted, heavy-feeling muscles to tighten his grip, just a little bit, on Phil's palm.

"Hey Specialist, you missed your extraction. I brought donuts and everything." Clint didn't think he could talk just yet, so just smiled up at Phil, not caring if he looked a bit lost and dopey, because it's Phil, and Phil thwarts gas-station robberies in his spare time, on his way to buy donuts.


End file.
